Editing Interactionism (section)

===Rejection of positivist methods===
Interactionists reject statistical ([[Quantitative research|quantitative]]) data, a method preferred by [[Postpositivism|post-positivists]]. These methods include: [[experiment]]s, [[structured interview]]s, [[questionnaire]]s, [[non-participant observation]], and [[secondary source]]s. This rejection is based in a few basic criticisms, namely:
*[[Statistical data]] is not "[[Validity (statistics)|valid]];" in other words, these methods do not provide people with a true picture of society on the topic being researched.
*Quantitative research is [[bias]]ed and therefore not objective. Whilst the sociologist would be distant, it is argued that the existence of a [[hypothesis]] implies that the research is biased towards a pre-set conclusion (e.g., [[Rosenhan experiment]] in 1973). Therefore, such research is rejected by interactionists, who claim that it is [[Social artifact|artificial]] and also raises [[ethical issues]] to experiment on people.